As geoscientist working for industry one comes across some rare chances to have a look at quite impressive pieces of heavy metal. I’ve recently had the chance to visit Allseas’ Pioneering Spirit, a pipe-laying and platform decommissioning vessel which is currently being prepped in the port of Rotterdam for the first project in 2016. The vessel is the largest ship in the world, going by deck size, dwarfing many of the publicly well known large ships like aircraft carriers, supertankers and cargo vessels. Here are a few impressions of that mighty piece of metal and engineering. There’s also some video footage of the vessel which can be found on YouTube – and the mighty lady even has her own Twitter feed (with more videos and pictures there).

The mighty ship in Maasvlakte 2

The lifting beams which are supposed to hold the platform legs

The stinger transition frame . It requires its own support vessel to be transported.

Starboard view, with helideck.

View from the entertainment room towards the portside pipeline loading